First, you start with yourself and immediate family.  The best thing to do is use a family tree form or group sheet which you can find free on the internet to write basic information, or copy and paste the one below.  Write your full name, birth date and place, marriage date and place. If you’re married you write the same information for your spouse and children.  Documentation for each event is necessary in research.  Write the surname in capital letters.  When writing dates you would write 30 October 2009, as an example.  Once you get started you may find this process is a bit addictive, as I did.

Obviously having only this information would be a bit boring one hundred years from now, so you want to add other pertinent events with dates, graduations, baptisms, including divorces, second marriages and pictures.  Medical information is also very important to future generations.  Try to leave a picture of your life for your relatives as if they were reading a good novel.

The next step is writing the same information for your parents, including death and place of death, when applicable.  List your siblings, including their children if applicable.  Using a family group sheet for each family is the easiest way to keep track of the families.  There are many types available but the necessary information is the same.  Then, you will want to use a pedigree file as the family group gets larger.  It is so important to list information accurately, especially if you want to join one of the many genealogy organizations where you must prove your heritage.

Note: If you are adopted some choose to list only the adoptive parents, others wish to list information from their birth parents.

You will want to talk to all your oldest living relatives.  Make a list and visit everyone if possible.  They will have stories and they will be able to answer many questions easily that would take a great deal of time in research.  Making a list of questions before your visits can be helpful.  They can tell you stories about those that have passed away and you may find there were some relatives you have never heard of before.

Review your information as you work starting again with you and moving up the line.  The research can get out of hand if you don’t keep things well organized.  I have a file for each family with copies of legal documents.  Some people have them in labeled brown envelopes.

There is much to be learned by joining your local genealogy society, even if you are not living in the place where you grew up.  The internet is absolutely growing by leaps and bounds with new genealogy information.  Ancestry.com is probably the best known but it does cost to join.  The Family History site of the Mormon Church is also a terrific place to do research.  You will become familiar with census from 1790-1930.  For a detailed article explaining each census see http://hubpages.com/hub/Genealogy-I-mportance-of-Federal-Census

There are several computer programs to store your information.  The best known are Family Tree, Legacy, and Roots Web.  They are all good programs and relatively inexpensive.  This keeps all information at your fingertips.

You have a big job ahead of you, so its time to get started!

It is important to keep accurate records.  The family tree sheet is used one per family.  Add all pertinent data including your sources.  They can be verbal sources from those still alive, but copies of documents are a better source if you can get them, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, etc.  It is worth the time you spend on each family as the more you trace back the more families you’ll have and it can become overwhelming. Try out this sheet by copy and paste.

Family Group Sheet: